Quotation
Last reviewed:
“Subjectivity is the truth.”
Søren Kierkegaard · Existentialism (forerunner) · Modern · 1846
What does it mean?
Subjectivity is the truth. Johannes Climacus says it, in the Postscript, about the way an existing person takes hold of ethical and religious truth, not about 'my feelings make facts'. A rival reading hears relativism: whatever you sincerely hold is true. Climacus is attacking the idea that truth in these matters is a result you can copy from a system without becoming the person the truth requires. Another reading, objective and fair, says he has made passion a substitute for evidence.
Did Søren Kierkegaard really say this?
The library’s label is Paraphrase or translation. A thesis of Johannes Climacus, the pseudonym, not a slogan Kierkegaard signs in his own name. Climacus is arguing about how an existing person relates to Christian truth, against a systematic philosophy that would finish the truth without the person. Hong and Hong are the translators.
Where it comes from
Concluding Unscientific Postscript, part 2, in the Hong and Hong translation
Approximate date: 1846.
How to use it
In a discussion group in a church hall in Leeds, or in a seminar next door, someone treats the sentence as permission to ignore a shared fact because their experience differs. Climacus is not talking about the bus timetable. He is talking about a truth that, on his account, dies when it is only recited. Using the thesis on the timetable is the misreading. Refusing to ask what he meant by appropriation is the other misreading.
A mindset reading
Name the pseudonym when you quote the thesis. Climacus is not a pen-name for convenience. The Postscript is huge because the thesis is not a slogan. If it fits on a slide, the slide has already decided not to understand it.
Understand the philosophy
The Concluding Unscientific Postscript, 1846, is Climacus's sequel to Philosophical Fragments. It is the book people mean when they call Kierkegaard the father of a subjectivist existentialism. The fatherhood is real. The subjectivism people mean is often not the thesis.
- knowledge
- self
- ethics
FAQ
What does it mean?
Subjectivity is the truth. Johannes Climacus says it, in the Postscript, about the way an existing person takes hold of ethical and religious truth, not about 'my feelings make facts'. A rival reading hears relativism: whatever you sincerely hold is true. Climacus is attacking the idea that truth in these matters is a result you can copy from a system without becoming the person the truth requires. Another reading, objective and fair, says he has made passion a substitute for evidence.
Did Søren Kierkegaard really say this?
Paraphrase or translation. A thesis of Johannes Climacus, the pseudonym, not a slogan Kierkegaard signs in his own name. Climacus is arguing about how an existing person relates to Christian truth, against a systematic philosophy that would finish the truth without the person. Hong and Hong are the translators.
Which work is it in?
Concluding Unscientific Postscript, part 2, in the Hong and Hong translation Approximate date: 1846.